Histochemistry

Histochemistry may seem like an extremely specialist area. Medical sciences such as biochemistry and histochemistry have become so advanced that there are even more sub-disiplines within already specialist-seeming areas such as histochemistry. Those subjects are not usually included in school or college-level courses or discussed at the level of introductory biology but they may be of interest to students reading further around scientific subjects to decide which topics to pursue at more advanced levels.

• Cytochemistry - the study of the actions of chemical compounds within living (biological) cells.

•Immunohistochemistry - the process of detecting antigens in sections of intact biological tissue (i.e. biological tissues in which each cell is surrounded by the tissue structures and other cells normally found in the intact tissue) using the principle of antibodies binding specifically to antigens in biological tissues.

• Immunocytochemistry - the process of using antibodies that target specific peptides or protein antigens in cells such that the bound antibodies can then be detected using various methods.

Note: Immunocytochemistry is different from immunohistochemistry because in the case of immunocytochemistry the tissues studied have had most or all of their surrounding extracellular matrix removed. This means that immunocytochemistry can be used to study cells that have been grown within a culture, deposited from suspension, or taken from a smear.